At least 40 people died in a week in Darfur, in western Sudan, in the worst cholera epidemic that this country, full of civil war, has known for years, announced doctors without borders, this Thursday, August 14.
In the Darfur region alone, MSF teams tried “more than 2,300 patients and registered 40 deaths last week,” said the organization.
“In addition to a general war, the Sudanese face the worst cholera epidemic that the country has known for years,” MSF said in a statement. This serious diarrheal disease, transmitted by contaminated water and food, can kill in a few hours without treatment.
The international community called to act
Sheldon Yett, representative of UNICEF for Sudan, requested a reaction from the international community. “The children of Sudan have been resistant. They have been making a war for more than two years. But they cannot survive without help,” he said.
A wish shared by Deputy Thomas Portes (LFI) that wants the international community to act “to save thousands of civil lives submitted for two years of war in inhuman conditions.”
More than 640,000 threatened children
According to UNICEF, more than 640,000 children under five are now threatened by the disease in Darfur’s Nord, where the fight is enraged between the Sudanese army and the paramilitaries of the fast support forces (FSR) for the control of the city of El-Phacher.
Since July 2024, around 100,000 cases of cholera through Sudan have been identified and the disease has spread to all states of the country, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Tawila, epidemic epidemic
In a country where fights block the main axes and paralyze logistics, the routing of humanitarian aid has become almost impossible. The convoys stop and the reserves are exhausted.
The rainy season, which intensified in August, could worsen the health crisis. The situation is the most critical in the town of Tawila, Darfur-Nord, where hundreds of thousands of Sudanese fleeing the fights around El-Phacher found refuge after the attack in April of the neighboring field of Zamzam by the FSR.
“In Tawila, the inhabitants survive with an average of only three liters of water per day, that is, less than half of the minimum emergency threshold of 7.5 liters per person and per day necessary to drink, cook and guarantee hygiene, according to WHO’s recommendations,” MSF said on Thursday MSF.
“We have no bathrooms, the children defeat outdoors,” said AFP Mona Ibrahim, a woman moved to Tawila for two months before.
The “worst humanitarian crisis in the world”
According to the UN, around 300 children with anger have been identified in this city since April. The fight has intensified in Darfur since the army resumed in March the control of Jardum and the paramilitarios, who besieged El-Facher, try to seize this city, the only provincial capital in the region that is still directed by the army.
“In the displaced and refugee fields, families often have no choice but to drink contaminated water and many people catch cholera,” said Sylvain Penicaud, MSF coordinator in Tawila.
“Two weeks ago, a body was found in a well in one of the camps. It was eliminated, but two days later, people were forced to drink this water again,” he added.
The war in Sudan, which broke out in April 2023, killed tens of thousands of people, led to the OA movement to fly abroad from millions of Sudanese and caused what the UN describes as “the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.” On Friday, August 1, the Hambruna threshold surpassed North Darfur, said the famine review committee.
Source: BFM TV
